]]>Head swimming with calorie numbers and daily allowances? Trust us…there’s a better way to measure your portions. Try this calorie control guide. It’s practical, powerful, and proven with over 45,000 coaching clients.

+++

If you’re looking for a better way to improve your eating and lifestyle habits, we’ll soon be opening up our Precision Nutrition Coaching program to men and women around the world.

Tested with more than 45,000 clients to date — and proven in several peer-reviewed research studies — it’s guaranteed to help you transform your body, and your life.

Here’s a quick glimpse of what our coaching can do.

Meet some of the people whose bodies, and lives, have been changed by Precision Nutrition Coaching.

During this 12-month transformation program, we’ll match you with a Precision Nutrition coach who will guide you through important, permanent improvements in your food choices, physical activity, body, and health.

The results?

You’ll lose the weight (and body fat) you haven’t been able to shed for years. You’ll build muscle, physical strength, and mental resiliency. And you’ll end up feeling more capable, more confident, and more free than you have in a long time.

Throughout the process, you’ll learn strategies for eating and moving well no matter how busy life gets or where your crazy travel schedule takes you. Which brings us back to today’s article…

+++

Trying to gain muscle? Lose weight? Just eat healthy?

Then finding the right portions is probably on your mind.

But calorie counting is usually a recipe for failure: It’s annoying, impractical, and research shows it can be up to 25 percent inaccurate on both sides — calories in, and calories out.

We can’t stand it. So we came up with a better way for Precision Nutrition Coaching clients — and anyone else who wants to look and feel better — to get the right amount and balance of food at every meal.

Note: If you want more resources like this, check Precision Nutrition Coaching. In addition to personal coaching, support, and accountability, we provide other visual guides, worksheets, and learning materials to help clients find healthy eating and lifestyle strategies that truly work in their lives.)

Want help improving your eating and lifestyle habits for good?

Need some help figuring out how to make each meal work for your health and body transformation goals? Would you benefit from some strategies for getting the best portions every time? If so we’ll soon be accepting a group of new clients into our Precision Nutrition Coaching program.

If you’re interested and want to find out more, I’d encourage you to join our presale list.

Being on the presale list gives you two special advantages.

You’ll pay less than everyone else. At Precision Nutrition, we like to reward the most interested and motivated people, because they always make the best clients. Join the presale list and we’ll give you over 45% off the monthly cost of Precision Nutrition Coaching, which is the lowest price we’ve ever offered.

You’re more likely to get a spot. To give clients the personal care and attention they deserve, we only open up the program twice a year. Last time we opened registration, we sold out within minutes. By joining the presale list you’ll get the opportunity to register 24 hours before everyone else, increasing your chances of getting in.

In the end, if you’re ready to find the food portions and balance that work for you, this is your chance to get help from the world’s premier coaching team.

If you’re looking for guidance on how to train your environment, improve your eating, and finally look/feel the way you want, we’ll soon be opening up our Precision Nutrition Coaching program to men and women around the world.

Tested with more than 45,000 clients to date — and proven in several peer-reviewed research studies — it’s guaranteed to help you transform your body, and your life.

Here’s a quick glimpse of what our coaching can do.

Meet some of the people whose bodies, and lives, have been changed by Precision Nutrition Coaching.

During this 12-month transformation program, we’ll match you with a Precision Nutrition coach who will guide you through important, permanent improvements in your food choices, physical activity, body, and health.

The results?

You’ll lose the weight (and body fat) you haven’t been able to shed for years. You’ll build muscle, physical strength, and mental resiliency. And you’ll end up feeling more capable, more confident, and more free than you have in a long time.

Throughout the process, you’ll learn strategies for eating and moving well in the context of your busy, hectic life, without depending on meal plans, calorie counts, or willpower.

Which brings us back to today’s article…

++++

If I took 50 random strangers to the grocery store and asked them to fill their basket with only nutritious, health-promoting foods, I bet they could do it. In other words, most people generally know what’s “healthy”. Or good for them.

If that’s true, why are so many people sick from chronic preventable diseases? Why are they sedentary and carrying around extra body fat? Why are people not putting all those nutritious, health-promoting foods into their grocery baskets — or more importantly, their bodies?

Why are people eating so poorly?

Obviously, just knowing stuff isn’t enough to actually do stuff.

Being able to memorize carb grams, or calorie tables, or the names of exotic superfoods doesn’t often change what we eat when it’s time for a hurried breakfast or a got-home-late-from-work dinner.

Those particular eating decisions have more to do with what’s (and who’s) around us — our environment.

Why is environment so important?

We like to think that we…think.

In other words, we assume we make rational, conscious, informed choices based on logically weighing all the available options. We assume that we make our decisions by thinking reasonably about things.

However, research has shown that most of our decisions are automatic, based on patterns and brain shortcuts.

Instead of slowly deciding, step by step, our brains quickly process a handful of grab-n-go inputs and pick from a recognizable menu of options. We ignore stuff we don’t like or want to see, and we’re easily compelled by shiny distractions.

Sound familiar?

Basically, our brains like the thinking version of fast food — go to the place that’s most appealing, speed through the drive-thru, pick the favorite combo from the menu, slam the decision, move on to the next choice.

So we don’t actually think much when we think we’re thinking.

We follow patterns, physical cues that bubble beneath our awareness, and what’s around us. That means our environment powerfully shapes our decisions, more than we realize.

For instance:

Most of us will eat all that we’re served — no matter how big the portion is. If we’re served a small bag of popcorn, we’ll eat that. If we are served a bucket of popcorn, we’ll eat that. Presumably if we are served a Volkswagen full of popcorn, we’d do our best to finish that off too.

We often eat more when we’re multitasking. Ever started snacking while watching TV or playing video games, then found yourself staring at an empty bag or bowl, wondering where it all went? Your attention was elsewhere, so your eating machine just went on autopilot.

If we consistently eat bigger portions, bigger portions will seem “normal” — and we’ll regularly overeat. Our great-grandparents (who drank 7-ounce soft drinks and ate 4-ounce hamburgers in the 1950s) would be astounded at the 50-ounce Double Gulps and 12-ounce Monster Thickburgers commonplace in the US. We’ve lost our perspective on how much we should really be eating.

Our environment: The foundation of habit.

If you think of body change as a pyramid, here’s what it should look like.

Notice: It’s the opposite of what you might expect.

All the “expert stuff” — adjusting macronutrients, advanced nutrition strategies, etc. — is at the top. You might not ever even get to it. It’s a “nice to have”.

The base of the pyramid — your foundation — is what surrounds you.

Your social environment and culture.

Your kitchen.

Your grocery habits.

Your day-to-day routine.

Your peeps.

In general, when it comes to engineering healthy eating, here’s the golden rule:

Make healthy behaviors convenient.

Make other behaviors less convenient.

Some examples:

Use smaller plates and cups. Most people eat everything on their plate. Use a smaller plate and you end up eating less naturally.

If there’s a food you don’t want to eat, avoid keeping it around. Why risk the temptation? Make it less convenient to eat.

Have fresh, healthy whole foods prepared and in plain sight. Veggies and fruits on your kitchen table or counter; that’s a good start.

Park your car farther away from where you’re going so you have to walk. Those extra steps add up.

1. Have an athlete-friendly meal delivery subscription.

Someone else will cook a meal that you know is healthy and bring it right to you.

What could be easier than that?

Pro tip: Look for a service that offers meals for athletes — they’ll offer double the lean protein (30-40 g) along with fibrous veggies like salad, steamed beans or broccoli.

2. Keep the ice cream, cookies, and chocolates out of the house.

Make “laziness” work for you by making it harder and more inconvenient to reach for high-calorie, low-nutrition, easy-to-overeat foods.

If you want sweets, you have to go get them. At 10 PM, when you’re snuggled into your sofa binge-watching your favorite TV show, it’s going to be a lot harder to motivate yourself to get up and go to the grocery store.

Pro tip: Keep a colorful assortment of dried and fresh fruits around for dessert instead.

3. Use a meal plan.

Don’t make fresh decisions every day, or keep meal choices totally open-ended all the time.

Instead, make decisions in advance and work from a template.

Pro tip: Every few days, sketch out the meals you’ll eat for the next few days. Check the list daily so you know:

what to buy at the grocery store;

what to pre-prep;

what meal you’ll eat at what time (or when you’re really hungry).

4. Keep chopped, ready-to-eat vegetables in the fridge.

Put them front-and-center so you see them and can get to them easily.

Pro tip: To make your favorite salad veggies even easier, store them “restaurant style”. Clean and sterilize one of your refrigerator’s crispers, dump chopped veggies (loose) into it, and cover them with a damp paper towel and a couple of ice cubes.

5. Don’t be hungry and in the grocery store at the same time.

Treat grocery shopping like a surgical operation: Have a plan (like your meal list from Tip 3). Get in and get out efficiently. (See if you can make a game of it.)

Pro tip: Focus on the perimeter — the produce, meat, and dairy sections. Don’t even go down the processed food aisles, so you won’t be tempted.

Shop with a basket instead of a cart to limit what you can buy (it sneaks in an arm workout, too).

6. Keep shake-ready ingredients in the freezer.

Frozen chopped fruit can be dumped straight into the blender and will make your super shakes extra thick and cold.

Pro tip: Are there any greens in your fridge “on their way out”? Stick them in a gallon bag in your freezer. Once frozen, crush them to make flakes. This reduces the space they take up and makes them simple to add to shakes.

7. Keep a batch of cooked grains handy.

Whole grains take time to cook, but if you make a batch on Sunday, you’ll have it in the fridge to use in grain bowls and stir-fries all week long.

Pro tip: Make two batches, and portion one out by the cupful to keep in containers in the freezer. Brown rice reheats nicely in the microwave. It’s like having home-made minute rice on hand.

8. Help your kitchen coach you.

Keep your kitchen as clean, pleasant and clutter-free as possible so you feel relaxed when you enter it (stress = cookie binges). Have an edible plant (like sunflower sprouts) growing on the counter for when you feel like snacking.

Pro tip: Make the fridge door a “vision board” with post-it notes reminding you of your goals, inspiring pictures, and cool looking magnets.

9. Just put on your sneakers.

Having them on your feet often just makes you feel like getting active.

Pro tip: For that matter, consider just wearing comfortable shoes all the time, so you’re up for anything.

10. Keep workout gear in your face.

Have a kettlebell, resistance bands, a dumbbell or two, a pull-up bar, and/or a suspension trainer in your home or office so you’re more tempted to use them.

Pro tip: Do “trigger training”: Leave the gear in various places throughout your house, and whenever you pass one of them, do a few reps. Over the day this adds up quickly without eating up too much time or leaving you wiped out.

11. Pack your “mobile gym” when you travel.

Book hotels with gyms and/or pools. Toss a jump rope or resistance bands into your suitcase along with a list of bodyweight-only exercises (like squats and pushups) that you can do anywhere.

Pro tip: A kayak bag (20 L capacity) folds up small enough to fit in a carry-on but turns into a ~40 lb kettlebell once you fill it with water.

12. Turn your car into a locker room.

If you drive a lot, be prepared with gym clothes and a healthy snack so you don’t make counterproductive decisions in desperate moments. Keep a shaker bottle with measured protein powder and greens under the seat — just add water.

Pro tip: Keep a container of several changes of exercise clothes, shoes, and towels in your trunk so you’re ready to move no matter where the day takes you.

13. Schedule workouts like you schedule meetings.

Put them on your calendar and treat them like any other appointment.

Pro tip: Put everything from workouts, to laundry, to work meetings, to rest and recovery on your calendar so that very few things are “unexpected”. Most of our routines are pretty predictable.

14. Move social gatherings to parks and gyms.

It doesn’t always have to be a bar or restaurant. Make your next date outside (frisbee?) or at a climbing gym or trampoline park.

Pro tip: This goes for professional networking, too. Instead of sitting down at a coffee shop, get coffee to go and have a walking meeting.

15. Have only half a car (or less).

Sharing a car with your partner or a friend means you’ll have to walk or bike more (some Precision Nutrition staffers have invested in cargo bikes so they can cart their kids along with them).

Pro tip: Walk on errands, even if your destination is on the outside edge of “reasonable”. For example, instead of driving seven minutes to the post office (or asking your partner to do it), take 25 minutes to walk there. That’s 50 minutes walking rather than 15 minutes sitting in the car, but the errand only took an additional 35 minutes from your day.

16. Combine walking and working.

Moving while you brainstorm or take a work call helps you focus and avoid the I-sat-at-a-desk-all-day soreness.

Pro tip: Get a used treadmill for a couple hundred bucks off Craigslist and fit it with a SurfShelf for your laptop. Now you can write, edit, fire off emails…all of it while you walk.

17. Separate yourself from your work once per hour.

Work for 50 minutes, then step away from your desk for for 10 (may we suggest a walk, some stretches, or some squats?). Cycle this for your workday. You’ll find that you still have energy and focus by the end.

18. Turn family and friends into coaches.

To create a supportive environment, be explicit with loved ones that you’re trying to eat better and get fit — and why. They don’t have to participate, but ask them to help. That takes the pressure off them to do what you’re doing, and most people (especially kids) like “helping” in some way. (Kids love to nag, so hire them as your alarm clock and workout reminder.)

Pro tip: Involve your family in goal-related activities, such as menu planning, meal prep, and rep counting. This reduces resistance by giving them ownership, meaning you won’t feel you’re the “other”.

Want help finding healthy eating strategies that actually work for your life?

Lots of people benefit from extra guidance and support when they’re looking to improve their food choices and physical activity — and finally get the body they want. If that’s you, we’ll soon be accepting a group of new clients into our Precision Nutrition Coaching program.

If you’re interested and want to find out more, I’d encourage you to join our presale list.

Being on the presale list gives you two special advantages.

You’ll pay less than everyone else. At Precision Nutrition, we like to reward the most interested and motivated people, because they always make the best clients. Join the presale list and we’ll give you over 45% off the monthly cost of Precision Nutrition Coaching, which is the lowest price we’ve ever offered.

You’re more likely to get a spot. To give clients the personal care and attention they deserve, we only open up the program twice a year. Last time we opened registration, we sold out within minutes. By joining the presale list you’ll get the opportunity to register 24 hours before everyone else, increasing your chances of getting in.

In the end, if you’re ready to find truly practical strategies to start eating, moving, and living better, this is your chance to get help from the world’s premier coaching team.

]]>How can you know if you’re making progress toward a body transformation goal? For starters, spend less time on the scale. Focus, instead, on these 7 superior progress indicators. (And, while you’re at it, be sure to download the 4 progress tracking sheets we’ve included below).

++++

“This is the first time I’ve felt full in 5 years.”

I’d been working with my nutrition client, Mary, for all of 24 hours when she sent me that sentence in a text message.

At our first consult, she handed me her food journal. It was full of low-fat, low-calorie, pre-portioned, packaged meals — heavy on carbs and chemicals, light on real food and flavor. Recently, Mary had been supplementing with more prepackaged snacks — and getting nowhere.

We agreed on the following plan: Three times next week, she’d eat a fresh salad topped with chicken, avocado, and olive oil. Protein. Fat. Real food.

The very next day I got the report: “This is the first time I’ve felt full in 5 years.”

Bam.

This was major progress, even though Mary had yet to lose a single pound.

As most experienced coaches know: The bathroom scale rarely marks the milestones along your path to a fitter, healthier body.

Our bodies are complex. They change in many ways — ways that are often intangible or subtle. We feel and function differently, though we can’t always say exactly how.

Long before we lose any weight, small signs of progress sprout and flower.

Like the first yellow crocus poking through the snow, those early signs of progress are motivation gold. They make us feel like we can persist through the last days of winter — through the toughest times of changing our habits, or learning new skills, when it seems like the ice will never melt and our muscles will never grow.

Of course, for most people, the junk food never runs out, so you’re left eating and eating and eating with zero satiation (and almost zero actual nutrition).

What progress looks like:

With your new nutrition plan, you’re eating slowly. Choosing fresh foods. Leaving less room in your diet for processed foods that rev the appetite and never seem to fill you up.

Fresh fruit, vegetables, meat, fish, beans, and legumes are taking up new space in your body, nourishing you, helping you feel satisfied. They signal to your gut and brain that It’s OK. We are OK. We are safe and comfortable and fed. We can stop now.

Imagine, for the first time, feeling “full”. Not stuffed. Just satisfied. Feeling like you’ve had enough.

Your gut and brain are calm. No panic. No restless pacing to the pantry. You’re just… done. Without any worry.

Yep, this is all possible. In fact, this is what you’ll start to experience once your nutrition (and exercise) plan is on track. It’s an early sign of progress you can sense into even before you lose any weight.

(Quick note: If you’re a smaller — and younger — guy trying to put on muscle, this may not apply to you. Being hungry all the time may be a good thing. Keep eating and lifting heavy!)

2. You have more energy

Maybe you can’t remember a time when you didn’t feel exhausted. Your alarm is your enemy. You don’t hit snooze; you literally punch the clock to make it shut up.

Mid-afternoon, you need a caffeine and sugar hit to keep your eyelids propped open, and by 8pm you’re crashing in your La-Z-Boy chair in front of the TV. Your brain feels like mush and your body like molasses.

Maybe your brain and body are getting too much processed food and too much sugar; maybe you’re borrowing energy from the future with stimulants.

Maybe you’re not getting enough vitamins, minerals, and other nutrients. Even small deficiencies in certain nutrients — which are much more common than you think — can drain your energy and fog up your focus.
What progress looks like:

One day, you wake up one minute before your alarm. Your eyes are actually open. You even feel… kind of… happy?

You don’t need seven shots of espresso throughout the day just to cope with your work inbox. You pay attention, even during the 3pm accounting meeting.

When you take your kids to the playground after dinner, you find yourself clambering up the climbing wall and slithering down the slide along with them. Back at home, your La-Z-Boy feels lonely and your TV abandoned.

A good nutrition plan gives you energy — constant, steady, all-day energy rather than a brief buzz and a crash. If you get it right, you’ll start experiencing this over time. Sometimes even before the scale needle starts to move.

How vitamins and minerals influence your energy levels.

The feeling of having more energy can come from the nutrients in fresh, whole foods, which we need for our bodies and brains to work properly. Try to get these nutrients through your diet, instead of supplementing.

Vitamin B6: We need vitamin B6’s active form pyridoxine-5′-phosphate (PLP) to make the amino acids L- tryptophan and L-dopa into the feel-good neurotransmitters serotonin and dopamine, both of which are important for cognitive function and focus. Vitamin B6 is also important for our cells’ mitochondria (power plant), helping to regulate the enzymes we use to draw energy from food.

Vitamin B12: We need vitamin B12 to protect and preserve the myelin sheath, which covers neurons and helps conduct the electrical signals sent around the body. B12 helps make neurotransmitters and metabolize fats and carbohydrate, your main energy sources.

Vitamin C: We need vitamin C to make carnitine, which transports long-chain fatty acids to the mitochondria to be used for energy. Vitamin C also helps us produce catecholamines, a group of hormones and neurotransmitters (such as adrenaline [epinephrine] and dopamine) that are usually stimulants.

Magnesium: We need magnesium for metabolic reactions, especially those that convert food into energy. Having more magnesium seems to improve cognitive abilities, while not enough seems to make cognition worse. Without enough magnesium in our cells, insulin doesn’t work as well, which makes it hard for us to use glucose. Many enzymes that help us convert food into energy need magnesium.

Calcium: Calcium helps to turn fatty acids into energy; it helps to modulate ATP production (aka our bodies’ fuel). As with magnesium, without enough calcium, our insulin may not work properly. Insulin is one of the main hormones of blood sugar regulation, which affects our energy levels.

Zinc: Zinc is a trace mineral, so we don’t need a lot, but we definitely need some. Zinc contributes to at least 100 enzymes in our body, many of which have to do with energy metabolism. When zinc is low, we don’t secrete as much insulin (which then causes problems with glucose metabolism); nor do we metabolize lipids (fats) nor protein well. If we don’t get enough zinc, we don’t get proper energy from food nor build proteins / muscle.

Water: Our brains depend on electrolytes — dissolved ions of minerals such as potassium, sodium, calcium, and magnesium — to work properly. We need to carefully balance our electrolytes and fluid to send chemical and electrical signals in the brain (aka neurotransmission). If we get enough water, we maintain that balance. If we’re dehydrated, our brain (and our thinking) suffers.

3. You’re sleeping better

You know those nights when you just can’t seem to fall asleep? Or when you toss and turn in a weird, hallucinogenic, sleeping-but-not-sleeping state?

Sometimes, Precision Nutrition Coaching clients don’t even know how tired and sleep-deprived they are, because five hours of fitful flailing is their normal.

There can be many reasons for poor sleep: stress, aging, hormonal changes, being a new parent, getting too much light late at night, jet lag, and so on.

Nutrition and exercise can play a role. For instance, if you diet too stringently, over-train (or under-recover), amp yourself up with tough workouts, or over-eat heavy meals late at night, you may not sleep well.

You may drink too much alcohol and caffeine. You may not get enough protein (to make the right neurotransmitters), nor enough vitamins and minerals (ditto).

You may also have disrupted hormones (such as cortisol, growth hormone, thyroid hormone, and sex hormones such as estrogen and testosterone) from stress and poor eating habits, all of which are important for good and restful sleep.

What progress looks like:

Now, with your nutrition plan, you’re getting enough good stuff to make the brain chemicals you need.

You’ve switched to half-glasses of wine with dinner, and — thanks to your newfound energy — laid off the afternoon espresso. Speaking of dinner, it’s a smaller portion that doesn’t leave you breathing in little huffs and give you nightmares about being chased by cheese.

In short, your body is no longer in an always-on-battle-stations-go state of chemical panic.

All of a sudden, you seem to wind down an hour before bedtime without a problem. You follow your sleep ritual and conk out easier than ever.

Fresh, whole foods contain more fiber, protein, and healthy fats, which require more time and effort to digest than the refined carbohydrates that make up the majority of processed food. This keeps you satisfied longer, stabilizing your blood sugar and various hormones needed for good sleep.

Tryptophan, an amino acid in high-quality protein sources, is a precursor to serotonin, which gets converted into melatonin to encourage sleep.

Balancing your energy intake alone can lead to better rest if it helps you lose excess body fat. (Excess body fat can make sleep uncomfortable because of heartburn, lack of mobility, sleep apnea, and other obesity-related problems.)

4. Your clothes feel just a little looser (or tighter)

Today’s the day. You reach into your closet, into the back, for that piece of clothing. You know, the one that almost never fits unless you’re massively dehydrated, wrapped in Saran Wrap, and holding your breath simultaneously.

Wow. It fits. Not just suck-it-in-and-suffer fits. But, like, really fits. It feels good. It looks good. No pulling fabric, no weird wrinkles, no strangling collars, no bulges of buttons or belts or bra straps.

Or maybe you’ve pulled out some other piece of clothing. The one that normally drapes over you like an oversized beach towel over a coat hanger. The T-shirt you can’t seem to fill out, the armholes with room to spare and a flapping curtain where you feel like billowing pecs should be.

Wow again. It doesn’t fit. And that’s great. Because your chest and arms and shoulders and back are now too muscular for it. The shirt is still flapping loose in one area, though: your newly whittled waist.
What progress looks like:

Muscle and bone are denser than body fat. When we build this lean mass, we often get heavier but smaller (at least in certain areas).

If you’re male, you may find your shoulders broadening, chest filling out, back wings fluttering, and a new case of “hockey ass” from muscular glutes… but your waist shrinking.

If you’re female, you may find that your scale weight goes up but your clothing size goes down (and you ace your bone density scan!).

This is why, in addition to tuning into how their clothes fit, we suggest clients use a tape measure to track the circumference of various body parts. To do so, download the Body Measurement Forms at the end of this article.

How does lean mass compare to fat?

Muscle cells are tightly packed with myofibrils. When these contract with enough intensity, the body adapts by generating more myofibrils and sarcomeres (assuming proper training and nutrition), increasing the density (and strength) of the muscle.

Even denser, bone is composed of complex combinations of calcium and phosphorus, heavy minerals that provide strength, flexibility, and support for all the stress we put on them. Bones also contain a significant amount of protein (mostly collagen-type proteins).

Adipose (fat) tissue, on the other hand, is loosely composed of adipocytes, cells that contain light, fluffy lipid molecules (mainly triglycerides). Unlike bone and muscle mass, fat tissue provides unlimited storage all over the body, so it will continue to grow when we over-eat.

This means: Muscle and bone are 18 and 33 percent heavier than fat by volume. It also means that your exercise and nutrition plan can help you look (and function) better without leading to weight loss.

5. You’re in a better mood

Have people secretly nicknamed you Stabby, Grumpy, Angsty, Miserable Cuss, or Party Pooper? Does it physically hurt you to smile?

The phenomenon of “hangry” is so well known that candy bar commercials joke about it, noting that “You’re not yourself when you’re hungry.”

Improving our mental and emotional outlook with good nutrition can show up in surprising ways. Here are some of the things Precision Nutrition Coaching
clients have discovered after consistently improving their nutrition habits.

“I feel…

“More confident.”

“Like change is possible.”

“Better about my choices.”

“More knowledgeable.”

“Clearer about my goals, and the path to get to them.”

“Like I walk tall now.”

“Mentally more ‘on’, clearer-headed and less ‘fuzzy’.”

“Happier and more positive.”

“More open to trying new things.”

“Motivated!”

In part, these changes come from the experience of changing habits. When we try something, and succeed, we get a little jolt of inspiration that encourages us to keep going.

These changes also come from the nutrition itself: Our brains and bodies have the nutrients and chemical tools they need to do their jobs — to regulate our emotions, to make our “happy neurotransmitters”, and to send those cheery and calming signals where they should go.

How food influences your mood.

The connection between our food, neurotransmitters, and blood sugar regulation means that how we feel depends a lot on what we eat.

Eating too much sugar may make you depressed. One large study on subjects from six different countries found that eating a lot of sugar and feeling depressed were closely related. This may be from chronically elevated insulin — the body’s continuous attempt to clear the constant onslaught of sugar from the bloodstream may cause mood crashes.

Having enough omega-3 fatty acids seems to put us in better moods. Include more nuts, fish, and seafood (like salmon, sardines, mackerel, crab and oysters) in your diet to get these happy healthy fats. (Bonus! Oysters are a great source of zinc too.)

Consuming too much vegetable oil, hydrogenated fats and trans fats may worsen our moods. These omega-6 fats make it hard for our body’s to process omega-3 fatty acids. Low levels of omega-3s are linked to symptoms of depression, being crabbier, and even being more impulsive. (Which can mean poor food choices — a vicious cycle.) Omega-6s may also increase inflammation, which can affect our brains. Many neurodegenerative disorders and mental health issues are linked to brain inflammation.

Eating lean proteins including chicken, turkey, and fish increases your consumption of tryptophan. Tryptophan is a building block of serotonin, a neurotransmitter that helps us feel relaxed and happy.

6. You’re stronger and have more endurance

Around the time you first start your nutrition overhaul, workouts might feel like a slog. Maybe you feel weak, uncoordinated and slow. Maybe you pick your dumbbells off the small end of the rack. And boy are you sore afterwards.

And then, gradually, you’re less sore. More of an “umph” getting out of bed than an “AAAAAUUUUGHHHH!!!!” You’re more zesty. Perhaps another set! you think, jauntily, suddenly full of beans. You eye the next dumbbell up.

Your muscles aren’t as sore. Intense exercise and new movements create microdamage — tiny tears in muscle fibers — that we must rebuild. This process of repair is good — it’s what helps us get stronger, fitter, and more muscular — but in the early stages, it hurts. Inflammation goes up; you might get stiffness and swelling from fluid rushing in to help heal the damage. As you progress, and give your body lots of nutrients to rebuild, this inflammation decreases and the repair process speeds up.

You can do more work overall. Whether it’s running, swimming, or cycling longer distances; lifting more weight for a longer workout; scrambling up a higher and tougher wall; or playing an extra round of tennis or golf; you’re simply able to do more stuff, more often. Good nutrition has improved your recovery and energy levels.

You’re fresher and recover better. Again, you’re giving your body the stuff it needs to do its job of making you stronger, faster, better, and fitter. Your cells are sucking in oxygen, dumping waste products, making more enzymes, and overall high-fiving each other.

7. It feels more like a lifestyle than a “diet”

“Diets” are a chore. They’re another to-do that you superimpose over your busy life, and another boring, strict, overly complicated task you can’t wait to quit.

When we do quit — because of course we do, it’s temporary, right? — we’re back where we started. Back “off the diet”. Back to processed foods, never-ending hunger, frustration, and weight gain.

What progress looks like:

Progress here happens when you’re just… living. You’re in a nice, natural, normal-day rhythm that doesn’t feel like being “on” or “off” anything.

Eating well stops being A Thing and just starts being your daily life.

You naturally gravitate toward whole foods. You pick the salmon over the hot dog without even thinking about it. You think, “A fresh salad would be nice”, and you really mean it.

You have a plan. Prepping meals in advance and keeping healthy backup options on hand is a regular part of your weekly routine now. You look for challenges and develop strategies for staying on track.

You don’t “mess up” anymore. Let me be clear: You still eat the birthday cake and the Christmas cookies and maybe go ahead and snarf the tub of popcorn at the movie theater. You don’t consider this “bad” or “guilt-inducing” any more. They’re just an occasional part of enjoying life. You savor them and then go back to eating mostly fresh, whole foods like you always do. No biggie.

Yep, this is also possible. It’s a natural and normal consequence of eating and exercising in a sensible and sane way. And it’s a sign of progress, regardless of what the scale is doing.

What to do next:
Some tips from Precision Nutrition

If you’re tired of being a slave to the scale, here are some ways to start breaking free.

Add, don’t subtract.

If you’re in a “diet mentality”, each day feels like a new battle to avoid the “bad foods”. So let’s flip that. Add, don’t subtract.

Health and fitness pros: I highly recommend sharing these with your clients.

Find a coach to support and celebrate your progress.

It’s often a lot easier (and always a lot more fun) to work toward your body transformation goal with help from an experienced nutrition coach. If you’ve been trying to make progress for a while, but just aren’t seeing results, consider getting some extra support.

With the right person in your corner, you’ll develop more effective change strategies and be better able to recognize progress markers and maintain the motivation it takes to make it to the finish line.

Stay energized and motivated, and get in the best shape of your life.

For many people, improved eating and lifestyle habits can seem impossible to sustain, especially when progress feels nonexistant. What the experts know: Progress is always happening, you have to know what to look for.

If you’re interested and want to find out more, I’d encourage you to join our presale list.

Being on the presale list gives you two special advantages.

You’ll pay less than everyone else. At Precision Nutrition, we like to reward the most interested and motivated people, because they always make the best clients. Join the presale list and we’ll give you over 45% off the monthly cost of Precision Nutrition Coaching, which is the lowest price we’ve ever offered.

You’re more likely to get a spot. To give clients the personal care and attention they deserve, we only open up the program twice a year. Last time we opened registration, we sold out within minutes. By joining the presale list you’ll get the opportunity to register 24 hours before everyone else, increasing your chances of getting in.

In the end, if you’re ready to start eating, moving, and living better, with help from the world’s premier coaching team, this is your chance.

]]>67727That fit person who’s ‘got it all together’… doesn’t. Take it from us: Everyone else is struggling, too.http://www.precisionnutrition.com/that-fit-person-whos-got-it-all-together-doesnt
Wed, 30 Nov 2016 04:01:30 +0000http://www.precisionnutrition.com/?p=61007Seem like everyone else is better, fitter and healthier than you? Like you'll never be that 'fit person'? If so, we've got some surprising news. Plus 7 steps to define and reach your goals — and finally feel more “OK” with you.

]]>Seem like everyone else is better, fitter and healthier than you? Like you’ll never be that ‘fit person’? If so, we’ve got some surprising news. Plus 7 steps to define and reach your goals — and finally feel more “OK” with you.

++

If you’re looking for a better way to get in shape and improve your health, we’ll soon be opening up our Precision Nutrition Coaching program to men and women around the world.

Tested with more than 45,000 clients to date — and proven in several peer-reviewed research studies — it’s guaranteed to help you transform your body, and your life.

Here’s a quick glimpse of what the program can do.

Meet some of the people whose bodies, and lives, have been changed by Precision Nutrition Coaching.

During this 12-month transformation program, we’ll match you with a Precision Nutrition coach who will guide you through important, permanent improvements in your eating habits, lifestyle choices, body, and health.

The results?

You’ll lose the weight (and body fat) you haven’t been able to shed for years. You’ll build physical strength and mental resiliency. And you’ll end up feeling more capable, more confident, and more free than you have in a long time.

Throughout the process, you’ll learn strategies for eating and moving well no matter what emotional and practical roadblocks life throws out you. You’ll finally have a plan — and the support you need — to change your body, improve your health, and live your ideal lifestyle.

Which brings us back to today’s article…

++

Fifteen years ago, thousands of men came to trainers with one burning wish: Make me look like Brad Pitt in Fight Club.

Who could forget Pitt’s lean, sinewy, anti-establishment Tyler Durden, all abs and dirt and knuckles and free spirit?

For those male clients, Tyler Durden was That Guy.

That Guy gets romance and adventure, kicks life in the ass, and rides off into the sunset.

That Guy doesn’t have to clean out eavestroughs, or slog through freeway traffic. He doesn’t have bad knees or get heartburn after eating a chili dog.

That Guy doesn’t say “uff” when he bends over to tie his shoes. His doctor isn’t telling him his rotator cuff is messed up, or that his blood cholesterol is too high. He’s not worrying about how to parent teenagers.

Female clients, of course, often have That Woman as their ideal. The jacked, gun-toting arms of Linda Hamilton as Sarah Connor in Terminator 2 sent a generation of women racing towards biceps curls in the 1990s.

Generally, though, That Woman may be somewhat more domestic than That Guy. (A little more First Lady Michelle Obama than freedom fighter, perhaps.)

That Woman fits into all her clothes (especially wedding dresses). She rocks Lululemon leggings and skinny jeans… even after having three angelic children.

If you are a female client who idealizes That Woman, you know this because That Woman is at your kids’ school picking up her well-groomed offspring.

She looks fabulous and together. She’s into Pilates or running or Crossfit or kale juice or something else that seems to keep her full of energy.

She’s a lawyer or a neurosurgeon or an international diplomat or perhaps a stay-at-home mother, but whatever she does, she excels at it and is fulfilled. She uses hashtags like #honored and #grateful and #blessed, and means it.

Meanwhile, you’re shoving aside banana peels and empty soda cups to make room for your kid’s dog-hair-encrusted car seat. And you’re wearing your husband’s track pant bottoms with baby spit-up on them, because they’re the only things that fit you right now.

If only we could become That Guy or That Woman.

They’re OK. Awesome, even.

And we’re not.

Right?

Wrong.

This might sound kind of weird, but…

As coaches, we know our clients’ secrets.

In our case, around 45,000 clients’ worth of secrets.

Now, this doesn’t mean we’re creepy peepers. We’re discreet and committed to confidentiality. One trusted coach sees one client in confidence and privacy.

But at some point, the baggy sweat pants have to come off so we can do body measurements. A camera captures your image, so we can observe your progress visually.

You share your cholesterol test or thyroid hormone panel with us, so we can talk about what it means. You tell us your daily routine, so we can see how to make changes.

At some point, you tell us honestly what’s going on, so we can help you.

That’s when it gets real.

And that’s when we both learn:

Everyone is not OK.

If you don’t have the big picture, as we do, it seems like Everyone Else is doing so much better than you.

It seems like Everyone Else can handle their lives. Everyone Else quickly learns the habits we teach.

Everyone Else is losing weight or gaining muscle or getting fitter so much faster and more effortlessly than you. Everyone Else has everything you don’t.

It feels like you are the only person in the world with your problems.

The truth is:

There is no Everyone Else.

There are only imperfect, wonderful, messy, very-much-human beings with hopes and fears and desires and neuroses and jobs and lives and kids and dogs or cats and family demands and toilets that need unclogging and lines-becoming-wrinkles and hangnails and alarms that go off too early and a love of chocolate-chip cookies… and all the rest of reality.

Like you.

Like me.

Like all of us.

“We’re all bozos on the bus,” said Woodstock MC Wavy Gravy in 1969, “so we might as well sit back and enjoy the ride.”

Elizabeth Lesser, author of Broken Open and a TED speaker, adds: “If we’re all bozos, then we can put down the burden of pretense and get on with being bozos.”

In other words…

We can stop worrying about being the only person who isn’t fit enough, smart enough, together enough, getting enough things done in a day, a good enough mom / dad / worker, whatever.

We can pursue fitness, nutrition, and health goals that are actually realistic and attainable — and feel good about what we do instead of inadequate.

Here are 7 ways to start feeling more OK, right now, in your own imperfect, messy life.

1. Reboot your expectations.

All you need are small consistent changes here and there. Walking the dog after dinner, perhaps a weekly class at the gym, or packing an apple in your lunch will generally do the trick.

Getting into pretty good shape is a little trickier, but can be done if you’re committed.

You might need to focus more on food quality and portion sizes, work out a bit more, be more careful with your indulgences. Still, do-able if you’re so inclined.

Getting into film-shoot-ready or magazine-cover-ready shape is a whole other game.

You give up your life to do this.

You eat out of Tupperware. You measure everything that goes into your mouth. Your entire routine revolves around eating (or not eating), working out, and sleeping so you have enough energy to work out again.

Now here’s the secret.

People in the third group — the ones we often imagine are Everyone Else — are professionals who make their living that way.

99.99 percent of you are not those people.

They only look like that for a few hours or days. But they might pour thousands of hours of work and maybe thousands of dollars of money into that project of getting super jacked and ripped. Brad Pitt had an entire staff of well-paid professionals making sure he rolled into his shoot looking that way.

Which means that even the 0.01 percent still don’t look like that all the time.

Nor are their lives awesome.

In fact, arguably, their lives are much less awesome.

Because they’re eating three ounces of plain cold chicken out of Tupperware at a family barbecue before they go and do their third workout of the day.

(Actor Charlie Hunnam of Sons of Anarchy complained to British GQ that Brad Pitt “ruined it for everyone” by creating unrealistic body expectations, so Hunnam was forced to go and work out two and a half hours a day on top of a 14-15 hour shooting schedule.)

In short:

Getting into slightly better shape, or a slightly healthier routine, doesn’t take much effort. That may be what is realistic for most of us, right now.

Getting into epic shape takes tremendous sacrifice… and kinda sucks. It probably isn’t worth it for most of us, right now.

Getting into epic shape creates other problems. Because of the demands of their job, cover models are often less happy, healthy, and balanced than the average person. (If you’ve ever chased this dream, you may have discovered this firsthand in the form of workout injuries, anxiety and depression, disordered eating, hormonal disruption, social isolation, and a host of other problems.)

So if magazine covers are off the table at the moment, what can you do?

2. Find realistic role models.

There are more “fit and healthy” people than you imagine. They might not look like you expect.

“Fit and healthy” comes in many sizes, shapes, and abilities.

Look around.

The gray-haired octogenarian standing at the bus stop. Did you know that despite her arthritis, she pops a painkiller and gets out to her dance class four times a week?

The rotund guy that delivers your mail. He walks 10 miles a day as a postman.

Your child’s preschool teacher. She only has 20 minutes a day to exercise, but she does them faithfully, hitting her exercise bike and Netflix every day before she comes to corral your kid. (Then she tries to spend all recess playing tag with 4-year-olds.)

What if you shifted your perspective to “good enough”, “a little bit better”, or “trying”?

What if you looked for small moments of health, fitness, and wellness everywhere?

What if you focused on doing what you could, today, anyway?

3. Embrace the struggle.

It’s not going anywhere.

Grappling with pain — whether that’s actual pain and suffering, or just small daily annoyances — is part of being human.

As adults, we recognize life’s complexity and richness. Wanting to “be perfect” or “have it all” is not an adult wish. It’s a child wish: to have all the toys, all the time, even your sister’s.

Of our clients taking medication, 33 percent of women and 24 percent of men take antidepressant or anti-anxiety medication.

36 percent of our clients have injuries. And many struggle with chronic pain.

27 percent of our female clients and 17 percent of our male clients are over 50 years old. (Even if you’re healthy, aging brings its own challenges.)

Many of these challenges are invisible.

You often can’t see pain or disability. You often can’t see psychological distress. Unless you see someone pop a pill, you don’t know what they’re taking.

And guess what — the PN staff struggle with the exact same things.

We have injuries. Or had them. Or will have them.

We’ve struggled with mental and emotional health sometimes. Or often.

We’ve struggled with addictions — whether that’s to work, or exercise, or food, or alcohol, or anything else that someone could get hooked on.

We’ve gained too much weight, or been scrawny, or gone weeks or months without working out.

We’ve been the ones wearing the baby barf sweatpants.

No matter what the challenge is, at least a few of us have faced it, and certainly none of us are getting any younger.

Someone who looks fit may be at the end of a long and difficult journey.

Like the cancer survivors whom we coached through post-treatment rehab.

Like people who are coming back from an injury or illness.

Like our courageous coaching clients who have chosen to do PN Coaching two, three, or even four times to really learn the habits and make the progress they want to make. That’s years of work.

They’re all being “good enough” — just showing up and trying their best in an imperfect situation.

4. Recognize and respect your not-OK-ness.

It’s OK to not be OK. None of us are 100 percent OK.

At the same time, sometimes things are really not-OK.

For instance, if you’re experiencing things like:

chronic insomnia or poor quality sleep

chronic pain or lack of mobility

frequent injuries and/or illnesses

chronic and debilitating depression, anxiety, or other mental health concerns

chronic social isolation and relationship difficulties

chronic lethargy and lack of energy

feeling like you need alcohol or recreational drugs to function

concerns with food, eating, and/or exercise that seem to be taking over your life and/or harming your health…

… then you could probably benefit from making some changes.

Sometimes, being in the depths of not-OK — for instance, having a debilitating gym injury, getting a scary medical diagnosis, or ending a relationship — is exactly the wake-up call we need to start working on being a little more OK.

Pay attention to your “dashboard indicator lights”.

Are your current struggles and imperfections more like garden-variety ups and downs? If they are, that’s just fine. It’s all part of being human.

On the other hand, if something feels really off, you might need a little extra help. You might talk to a trained coach, counsellor, or other health care professional.

Learn to heed your own signals. Know when not-OK is actually not OK, and requires extra help.

5. Learn to be OK with being “not OK”.

As PN coaches, much of work is actually helping our clients get a little more comfortable with discomfort.

If you’re a coaching client, you might hear phrases like:

Step into the discomfort.

Let things be a bit messy.

You are human. You are normal. You are not a weirdo. You are not alone.

You might also hear questions like:

How might you make things a little bit simpler for yourself?

What does it feel like to sit with the discomfort of change?

How could you stretch yourself just a bit?

Life is never going to be completely OK, 100 percent of the time.

The trick is to learn how to be OK with that not-OKness, and work on making things just a little bit better.

6. Take small steps towards slightly more OK.

If there’s a lot of invisible suffering in the world, there are also a lot of invisible successes and joys too.

Nobody besides the newspaper delivery person sees you running at a dark 6 AM. But you know. And you’re proud of your dedication.

Nobody besides your doctor knows you need anti-anxiety medications or anti-inflammatories or some other drug to function. But you know. And you’re proud of weighing your options and deciding on what’s best for you, even if that choice isn’t “perfect”.

Nobody besides your grocer sees you picking out leafy greens and lean protein to put in your shopping cart. But you know. And you’re proud of passing by the Nutella and Oreos that once called your name when you struggled with binge eating.

Nobody besides the inside of your brain sees you grappling with the “right choice” in a situation where you don’t have to make the right choice. But you know. And when you make that choice… you’re proud of yourself for sticking to your values.

Maybe that “right choice” was pausing for ten seconds to review what matters most to you.

Maybe you were just following your shopping list when you grabbed those leafy greens.

Maybe you think that effort was so small, it didn’t “count”.

But here’s a coaching secret: the steps that lead to success? They’re almost all small things.

Success comes from putting small things on top of small things on top of small things.

7. Find your work-arounds.

Do you need accommodation or help? Find it. Get it.

Work on creating a system that you trust to help yourself.

If you have one body part that’s not working very well, explore other movement options, or workouts that don’t depend on that body part.

If you don’t like cooking alone or working out alone, find someone else to do this with. Grab a buddy for Sunday chili-making day, or hit a group class.

If you’re having trouble “finding time” for things, get out a calendar and start planning. Book appointments for everything, even grocery shopping. Track your time use so that you know when you’re wasting time. Then, set alarms and reminders, stick up Post-it notes, and carve out 15 minutes a day to ditch Facebook and hang out with the squirrels during a walk in the park instead.

Coaching secret: Most people aren’t “naturally” good at most things.

The people who look like they’re good at things are getting help, and/or have a trusted system to guide them.

When we start accepting our own limitations — our own “not-OKness” — that’s when we start making changes for the better.

We embrace the small improvements that add up over time.

We treat ourselves with more compassion and evolve past an “all or nothing” attitude.

We pick ourselves up after we fall down, and we make course corrections when we need to.

And we ask for help when we need it.

Best of all, the more we accept being not OK, the more life feels… well, a little more OK.

What to do next

Gather data.

If you’re feeling not-OK, start recording what and why.

Write down all the ways in which you don’t feel OK.

Analyze your data.

What is regular not-OK (tendonitis, having a bad day, eating a waffle over the sink for dinner, etc.) and what is not-OK worth checking out (chronic illness, debilitating depression, etc.)?

Calibrate your expectations and check your blind spots.

What are you trying to do? Write out the things you are trying to accomplish or achieve right now.

Now review those expectations.

Would a sane, kind, wise friend or mentor tell you those expectations are realistic?

(If you actually have a sane, kind, wise friend or mentor, ask them for advice.)

Using their advice (real or imaginary) as a guide, re-consider your expectations. How could you adjust them to make them more realistic and attainable?

Consider a few small next steps.

One of the hallmarks of not-OK-ness is that it often feels paralyzing. It’s like swimming through peanut butter.

Action is the antidote to paralysis.

Whatever you can do, no matter how tiny, do something to affirm your basic OK-ness, even when things don’t feel OK at all.

Assemble your team.

Do you need to add people to your “Project OK” team? Such as a trusted buddy or family member, a coach, counsellor, or other health care provider?

If so, find them and recruit them to Project OK.

Ask for what you need. Let them help.

Start building a system.

OK-ness is not a do-it-yourself project. Nor does OK-ness happen spontaneously.

Along with helpers, you need systems to be OK. Things that remind you, guide you, help you, fill in the gaps for you, and generally help you stay more or less on track.

Want help looking and feeling your best?

Need some help figuring out what’s “OK” for you? Would you benefit from some support, guidance, and strategies for living better within the context of your life? If so we’ll soon be accepting a group of new clients into our Precision Nutrition Coaching program.

If you’re interested and want to find out more, I’d encourage you to join our presale list.

Being on the presale list gives you two special advantages.

You’ll pay less than everyone else. At Precision Nutrition, we like to reward the most interested and motivated people, because they always make the best clients. Join the presale list and we’ll give you over 45% off the monthly cost of Precision Nutrition Coaching, which is the lowest price we’ve ever offered.

You’re more likely to get a spot. To give clients the personal care and attention they deserve, we only open up the program twice a year. Last time we opened registration, we sold out within minutes. By joining the presale list you’ll get the opportunity to register 24 hours before everyone else, increasing your chances of getting in.

In the end, if you’re ready to feel more ‘OK’ and start eating, moving, and living better, this is your chance to get help from the world’s premier coaching team.

]]>61007Settling the great grain debate. Can wheat and other grains fit into a healthy — and sane — diet?http://www.precisionnutrition.com/grain-wheat-debate
Mon, 28 Nov 2016 04:01:48 +0000http://www.precisionnutrition.com/?p=56712Are grains saving your life — or trying to kill you? In this article, we'll discuss both sides of the debate. We'll also leave you with some actionable steps to start eating better immediately.

]]>Are grains saving your life — or trying to kill you? In this article, we’ll discuss both sides of the debate. We’ll also leave you with some actionable steps to start eating better immediately.

++++

Quick: How do you feel about grains?

Are they an essential food group that makes up the foundation of a nutritious diet?

Or are they evil little packages of carbs and toxins out to make you fat and inflamed, and slowly kill you?

This discussion is one of the great nutrition debates of our time.

In one camp are vegans, vegetarians, and macrobiotic dieters, who eat a ton of whole grains. They say grains will help them live longer and healthier, free of chronic disease. Indeed, recent news seized on a Harvard study connecting grains with lower risk of death.

In the opposing camp, you’ve got the Paleo, Whole30, and Atkins advocates, who strictly limit or even completely avoid grains. They say not eating grains will help them live longer and healthier, free of chronic disease. They dominate plenty of news, too.

Celiac disease has gone up over the last 60 years, which has given rise to a gluten-fearing food subculture (and the booming gluten-free marketplace to match). Tens of millions of North Americans now conduct grain-free experiments on themselves and read bestsellers like Wheat Belly.

As a result, many people now say they feel better when they limit or cut out one or more grains.

Who’s right?

And, most importantly, should you eat grains?

Let’s iron it out once and for all.

An old staple

Grains, the seeds of grasses, are an ancient food source that is still the main source of calories for people all over the world.

Along with the familiar wheat, rice, oats, corn, barley, buckwheat and rye, there are lots of lesser-known grains such as triticale, quinoa, teff, amaranth, sorghum, millet, spelt, and kamut.

The raging debate about grains can make it seem like they’re a relatively new addition to the human diet, but we’ve actually been consuming them in some shape or fashion for millions of years (yes, the real Paleos ate grains, too). Learning to cultivate wheat helped us give up the nomad life and create civilization as we know it today.

Grains provide a wide array of nutrients, including vitamins, minerals, fiber, and phytonutrients.

Of course, when it comes to grains’ nutrients, we’re talking about whole grains. As in the whole seed. Like this:

Whole vs. refined grains

One of the reasons that this debate became so muddled so quickly is that people conflate “grains” with “carbs.”

Refined grains — ones that have had their bran and germ stripped away through milling — provide all the carbohydrates with hardly any of the nutrients found in whole grains. They’re often packaged with large amounts of fat and salt.

As a result, these processed grains are really tasty, easy to consume, but way less satiating — a deadly combo that leads many people to overeat, setting them on the path toward weight gain and chronic disease.

But what about whole grains?

Aren’t they bad for you, too?

The (supposed) ill effects of grains

Some say grains can really mess up your health by causing inflammation, intestinal damage, obesity, and more. What does science say?

Inflammation

A huge contingent in the grain-hating world claim these plants contribute to low-level inflammation, an ongoing immune response in which your body attacks its own tissue, causing cell damage.

They use a few studies to prove their point.

One study had people add 19 grams of wheat bran — the equivalent of about three cups of bran flakes — to their daily intake. Three months later, the subjects had slightly increased levels of oxidized LDL cholesterol, a possible marker of increased inflammation.

Cue the grains-cause-inflammation rumors.

The problem? By the end of the experiment, 44 of the 67 subjects had dropped out!

Of course, these are just links. You need controlled trials to prove any causal relationship.

Overall, controlled trials are neutral or supporting of the epidemiological studies here, finding that whole grains either have no effect on inflammation or indeed result in a decrease.

Not one single controlled trial has shown that grains increase inflammation.

There’s an idea in the fitness industry that inflammation is the root of all health problems, and, therefore, that all health problems can be traced back to the diet and your gut. This is a false premise.

But the more likely scenario in most cases is that inflammation is a result of disease, and that it exacerbates other conditions or disease states that have already been set into motion.

There are lots of research papers on all of this. And lots of inflammatory markers we can now test.

No one — I repeat, no one — is really sure what it all means.

But inflammation probably does not cause most diseases, even those with an inflammatory component.

Intestinal damage

Another prevailing idea in the anti-grain movement is that grains damage your intestines because they contain anti-nutrients and other compounds that interfere with how well you absorb minerals.

At least three studies have investigated this theory. The findings: Consuming various amounts of whole wheat flour, wheat bran, and/or oat bran had no significant effects on absorption or blood levels of calcium, zinc, or iron.

Let’s look at a few anti-nutrient players.

Lectins: These proteins bind to cell membranes, which can cause damage to intestinal tissue if you consume very large amounts or don’t cook the plant first (just a few sprouted red kidney beans would result in some terrible GI symptoms). But the body also uses lectins for basic functions like cell-to-cell adherence, inflammation control and programmed cell death. Lectins may even reduce tumor growth and decrease incidence of certain diseases.

Phytic acid: The storage form of phosphorus, phytic acid can bind minerals in the digestive tract, preventing their absorption. In really large doses, it can cause nutrient deficiency and related problems (it’s been blamed for short stature throughout Egypt’s history). But you’d have to eat copious amounts of bread that hasn’t gone through leavening — a standard process that significantly reduces phytic acid levels — for this stuff to be a threat. In fact, in reasonable amounts, phytic acid has a number of possible health benefits.

Protease inhibitors: When raw or lightly cooked, grains still contain large amounts of protease inhibitors, which block the action of protein-digesting enzymes, interfering with your protein absorption. But once appropriately cooked, grains contain very few protease inhibitors — and those that remain actually have anti-inflammatory and anti-cancer properties.

Thus, these anti-nutrients can be a problem if you eat way too much of them, or don’t cook the foods that contain them properly. But if you eat like most people do — consuming a variety of foods and carbohydrate sources — you’ll probably be just fine.

There is research showing that gluten — a protein found in certain grains (see below) — can cause your intestinal lining to be more permeable. But all of these studies were conducted ex vivo — meaning in an unnatural environment outside the body.

In vivo studies, done inside the body and thus more practically useful, have found that the consumption of grains actually improves GI symptoms in sufferers of Crohn’s, ulcerative colitis, and IBS.

You know, the people who would be most prone to the supposed intestinal damage inflicted by grains.

Not eating plant foods because they have compounds designed to resist their digestion would be like not eating a lobster because it has a shell and claws. All living things try to avoid being eaten. It’s simply not a tenable argument.

Gluten intolerance

A protein found in wheat, rye, and barley, gluten’s visco-elastic properties are what make bread so darn delectable.

In people with celiac disease, exposure to gluten causes inflammation and stimulates the immune system to attack the small intestine, damaging its cells.

Over time this can inhibit digestion and make the gut more permeable, allowing in toxins, undigested food, and bacteria that would never normally make it through. Celiac can cause diarrhea, nutrient deficiencies, osteoporosis and even cancer. The only treatment for celiac is a gluten-free diet.

Overall, celiac is still poorly understood and a challenge to diagnose. There are currently several different blood screens and an intestinal biopsy, but none of these are 100 percent accurate.

That’s why the estimated celiac rate ranges so widely, generally from 0.3-1.2 percent of the population (some even speculate up to 3 percent). Most experts attribute celiac to about 1 percent of the American population.

An estimated 10-20 percent of the population may suffer some other form of gluten intolerance. Originally coined “non-celiac gluten sensitivity” (NCGS), this condition seems to result in many of the same symptoms seen with celiac (bloating, pain, diarrhea) without the intestinal damage or biological markers of an autoimmune disease.

But all of this is up in the air. Experiencing doubts, the researcher whose work seemed to prove the existence of NCGS performed a more rigorous follow-up study. He and his colleagues concluded that NCGS actually does not exist.

Unless you have a confirmed intolerance, there is little evidence to support eliminating gluten from your diet.

In fact, avoiding gluten unnecessarily could have the exact opposite effect you’re looking for. Many packaged gluten-free products are jammed with extra sugar and fat to make up for the palatability that’s lost when gluten is removed.

FODMAP intolerance

What’s going on in people who seem to have gluten sensitivity if it’s not celiac or NCGS?

Researchers now believe their symptoms of pain, bloating, and gas may be due to “FODMAPs”: fermentable, oligo-, di-, mono-saccharides and polyols.

FODMAPs are carbohydrates that are found in some grains but also in dairy, vegetables, fruits, and many other foods. Some people don’t break them down or absorb them properly in the small or large intestine.

FODMAPs then draw water into the gut and get fermented by the bacteria in our colon, producing hydrogen instead of methane (plus a bunch of undesirable GI symptoms).

Does 10-20 percent of the population have a FODMAP problem? Frankly, the research is far from conclusive here.

The best we can say is that if you suffer from NCGS-type symptoms, removing wheat from your diet might be prudent.

Otherwise, there’s no need to mess with it. For those who tolerate FODMAPs, the fructans in wheat actually seem to be a beneficial prebiotic.

Obesity

There’s been a lot of research on grains and body weight. Unfortunately, most of this research is, you guessed it, epidemiological.

Regardless, these epidemiological studies are unanimous in showing that higher whole grain consumption is associated with lower body weight.

Controlled trials have been less consistent in their results. In these tests, whole grains don’t consistently lead to superior fat loss — though the studies didn’t show the grains caused people to gain weight, either.

To go beyond the inconclusive controlled-trial data, we can look at how real people do on grain-heavy diets.

These aren’t perfect data, because there are many variables. But it can suggest possible trends and give us an idea of how grain consumption affects body weight in the real word, during real life.

If grains were inherently fattening, vegetarians and vegans, as well as many eaters in less-industrialized countries (where grains like rice or sorghum are usually a staple) would likely be more overweight or obese.

No literature exists showing that plant-based eaters, or those folks in regions for whom grains are a staple, have a higher incidence of overweight or obesity. In fact, the research shows just the opposite.

While these correlations certainly don’t prove anything, it’s likely that if grains really did cause obesity, we would see some trends and correlations to reflect it.

But here’s the crux of the issue: Buckwheat, oats, and quinoa aren’t making anyone fat.

In their original form, these and other whole grains are relatively bland foods, not overly calorie-dense, not unusually delicious, high in fiber and relatively satisfying. (Remember the old commercials with the grandfatherly Wilford Brimley telling us that oats would “stick to our ribs”?)

With processed foods, “carbs” are just a way to deliver hyper-palatable, “can’t-eat-just-one” enjoyment as well as calorie-dense fatty meats, cheeses, sauces, and condiments. But are the “carbs” themselves really the main problem here?

OK, so, are whole grains good for you?

Here’s what we know about the benefits of whole grains. They are:

high in fiber, a nutrient that can help you maintain a healthy GI tract.

slow to digest, which helps keep blood sugar under control.

packed with vitamins and minerals.

satisfying, which helps keep your appetite in check.

And there may be more specific benefits.

Overall, research shows that whole grains, with varying degrees of success, seem to decrease the risk of colorectal cancer, cardiovascular disease, and diabetes. They also seem to improve blood sugar control and insulin sensitivity, and protect against high blood pressure.

OK, fine. But are grains crucial to health?

Do you need to eat grains?

No. You don’t need to eat any one particular food — be it grains, apples, kale, or fish.

If you exercise fairly frequently, then you’ll likely do best with a moderate carb intake. Not getting enough could mess with your metabolism, stress hormones, and muscle-building hormones.

If you’re sedentary, have blood sugar issues, and/or need to lose a bunch of weight, then you’ll likely do best with a lower carb intake.

You could replace whole grains with a variety of other high-quality carbs, like potatoes, sweet potatoes, fruit, legumes, squash, yuca, and yams. You’d be able to get all the carbs you need, in addition to plenty of fiber and a wide array of beneficial phytonutrients.

But trying to eliminate grains entirely is going to be difficult in even the best of circumstances.

In a life that involves family holidays, birthday parties, work functions — any instance where others are preparing the food — completely cutting out grains if you’re not suffering from celiac or a sensitivity becomes way, way more trouble than it’s worth.

Getting perspective on where grains fit

Often when we talk about food, we talk about the awesome things food X does. Or the terrible things food Y does.

In reality, foods are often a mixture of both good and bad outcomes, depending on what the diet as a whole looks like, the amount of food X or food Y being eaten, and the person who’s eating them.

The position that all grains are unhealthy and should be categorically avoided is too extreme.

So is the notion that grains are inherent “superfoods” that everyone should consume in massive quantities.

Neither end of the spectrum is right.

Most people can be fit and healthy with a mixed carb intake that includes some whole grains (a few refined carbs can be OK, too).

Weigh the benefits against the risks.

Might wheat carry some low-level of risk for some people? Possibly.

Is it likely that the benefits of whole-grain wheat still outweigh this risk? Yes. The same is true for most whole grains — and whole foods — in general.

In the end the best thing to do is:

objectively evaluate the research

review the differing opinions of qualified experts with an open yet skeptical mind

test to find what works best for YOU

know that what’s best for you may change over time

What to do next

It’s all a lot to process. Where should you go from here?

Let this list be your guide:

Focus on whole, minimally processed, nutrient-rich foods. This means you’ll be eating plenty of lean protein and plants — including grains. It’ll also help you limit refined grains (those don’t hit the “whole” mark). Remember that what’s on top of the potato skin affects your health more than that sad, maligned tuber does itself.

Try sprouted and fermented breads. To take it further, grains that have been sprouted (e.g. Ezekiel bread) or fermented (e.g. sourdough) have even lower levels of phytates, lectins, and protease inhibitors. This increases mineral bioavailability and also tends to boost the protein quality of the bread.

If you suspect a problem with gluten, get tested. Go see your doctor, and get help implementing a gluten-free diet if you test positive for celiac disease.

Zero in on wheat. While whole-grain wheat is likely still mildly beneficial for most (sprouted wheat might be even better), this appears to be the grain with the most problems and fewest advantages. If you’re having GI issues, it’s reasonable to see if avoiding wheat helps. Here again, talk to your doctor.

Try other grain options. Variety is good. We’ve given you a list of whole grains in the beginning of this article. Try some others you don’t normally eat. Have fun expanding your horizons.

Consider an elimination diet. Food sensitivities do exist, though we don’t know with what frequency. They’re linked to GI problems and a host of other conditions throughout the body. The gold standard for uncovering a food sensitivity (grain-related or otherwise): elimination diets, in which you systematically remove and then reintroduce foods in your diet, making note of any changes in symptoms.

Want help fine tuning your eating and lifestyle?

Often, improving your habits isn’t as straightforward as you’d like. If you’re looking for guidance, we’ll soon be taking a group of new clients looking for expert support, all as part of our Precision Nutrition Coaching program.

If you’re interested and want to find out more, I’d encourage you to join our presale list.

Being on the presale list gives you two special advantages.

You’ll pay less than everyone else. At Precision Nutrition, we like to reward the most interested and motivated people, because they always make the best clients. Join the presale list and we’ll give you over 45% off the monthly cost of Precision Nutrition Coaching, which is the lowest price we’ve ever offered.

You’re more likely to get a spot. To give clients the personal care and attention they deserve, we only open up the program twice a year. Last time we opened registration, we sold out within minutes. By joining the presale list you’ll get the opportunity to register 24 hours before everyone else, increasing your chances of getting in.

In the end, if you’re ready to start eating, moving, and living better, with help from the world’s premier coaching team, this is your chance.

Gilani GS, Xiao CW, Cockell KA. Impact of antinutritional factors in food proteins on the digestibility of protein and the bioavailability of amino acids and on protein quality. British Journal of Nutrition 2012;108:S315-S332.

Maki KC, et al. Whole-grain ready-to-eat oat cereal, as part of a dietary program for weight loss, reduces low-density lipoprotein cholesterol in adults with overweight and obesity more than a dietary program including low-fiber control foods. J Am Diet Assoc. 2010 Feb;110(2):205-14.

]]>56712Precision Nutrition Coaching for Women: Here’s exactly how the program works, and what others are saying about it.http://www.precisionnutrition.com/an-inside-look-womens-coaching-blog
Wed, 23 Nov 2016 04:01:23 +0000http://www.precisionnutrition.com/?p=69810Watch this short video to learn exactly how Precision Nutrition Coaching for Women works. (Video includes program overview, screenshots, and client interviews).

]]>69810Precision Nutrition Coaching for Men: Here’s exactly how the program works, and what others are saying about it.http://www.precisionnutrition.com/an-inside-look-mens-coaching-blog
Wed, 23 Nov 2016 04:01:21 +0000http://www.precisionnutrition.com/?p=69812Watch this short video to learn exactly how Precision Nutrition Coaching for Men works. (Video includes program overview, screenshots, and client interviews).

]]>69812Precision Nutrition’s ProCoach: What are ACTUAL USERS saying about it?http://www.precisionnutrition.com/inside-look-at-procoach-blog
Tue, 22 Nov 2016 04:01:45 +0000http://www.precisionnutrition.com/?p=69798Learn how others are growing their businesses, helping more people, and creating more freedom for themselves and their families.

]]>69798How to quit weekend overeating. 5 strategies to help you ditch the bingeing, guilt, and extra weight.http://www.precisionnutrition.com/weekend-overeating
Mon, 21 Nov 2016 04:01:49 +0000http://www.precisionnutrition.com/?p=62851In my world, weekend overeating (and over-boozing) was ‘just what people did'. But when I let go of weekday food rules, the cycle broke. I dropped the guilt, improved my health, and lost weight. Here's how you can do it too.

]]>In my world, weekend overeating (and over-boozing) was ‘just what people did’. But when I let go of weekday food rules, the cycle broke. I dropped the guilt, improved my health, and lost weight. Here’s how you can do it too, whether you do it on your own or with the help of a coach.

Tested with more than 45,000 clients to date — and proven in several peer-reviewed research studies — it’s guaranteed to help you transform your body, and your life.

Here’s a quick glimpse of what the program can do.

Meet some of the people whose bodies, and lives, have been changed by Precision Nutrition Coaching.

During this 12-month transformation program, we’ll match you with a Precision Nutrition coach who will guide you through important, permanent improvements in your eating habits, lifestyle choices, body, and health.

The results?

You’ll lose the weight (and body fat) you haven’t been able to shed for years. You’ll build physical strength and mental resiliency. And you’ll end up feeling more capable, more confident, and more free than you have in a long time.

Throughout the process, you’ll learn how to deal with all sorts of difficult eating situations, including weekend overeating, and you’ll come away with new skills that will serve you for the rest of your life.

Which brings us back to today’s article…

+++

I used to overeat like a boss.

True story.

Sure, I was “good” all week.

But weekend overeating? That was my jam.

Every Friday around 5pm, as I waited for the bus after work, I’d start to salivate. The end of the work week meant red wine, pizza, a giant bag of chips, and bad movies. It was a Friday ritual.

Sometimes I’d call my husband while waiting. What should we get on the pizza? They do that really good pesto sauce with goat cheese. What about extra sausage?

Friday night, when I got to eat whatever I wanted, was the highlight of my week.

My job was stressful. The commute was long. Coming home, dumping my stuff, and crushing some fast food and booze was my way of unwinding.

However…

Friday became a gateway drug to the rest of the weekend.

I ate big breakfasts on Saturdays before I went to the gym, and big lunches afterwards. I went out on Saturday nights for drinks and a heavy meal. Or stayed home for more takeout and movies on the couch.

Then came Sunday brunches, of course. And picking up some of those amazing cookies at that little coffee shop on Sunday walks. And, naturally, you close weekends with a big Sunday roast… because it’s Sunday.

Because it’s Friday. Because it’s Saturday. Because it’s Sunday.

Which bled into: Because it’s Thursday night. Technically close enough to Friday. Friday-adjacent, and good enough.

In my head, the weekend was a time where “normal rules” didn’t apply. It was a time to relax, put my feet up, and let the soothing crunching and chewing take me away.

I’m not talking about compulsive bingeing here. That’s where you have episodes of eating without thinking, almost like you’re on autopilot.

(People with binge eating disorder feel disassociated while overeating and that can be hard to break without help from a doctor or therapist.)

But for me, it wasn’t that. Rather, mine was the kind of overeating where you’re all-in: a convenient, stress-fueled, often social, habit.

My social circle was happy to support it. I had binge buddies and pizza pals. As far as I was concerned, going hog wild was just what people did on weekends.

Looking back, I also know that in the face of a stressful job and overwhelming responsibilities my overeating ritual made me feel sane and human.

After a while, though, weekend overeating started to suck.

As every overeater knows, the joy of runaway indulgence comes with consequences.

You feel physically uncomfortable, bloated, perhaps even sick to your stomach. Mentally, you feel crappy. Guilty. Regretful. Maybe angry at yourself. Or just angry in general.

And while weight fluctuation is inevitable when you’re trying to get in shape, if you want to stay healthy and fit, or make fitness and health a permanent part of your lifestyle, then weekend overeating can sabotage your goals.

Like your joints hurt because of inflammation from last night’s junk food. Or you’re too full to run properly. Or you lie awake in bed with meat sweats, huffing in small breaths around the food-baby in your belly.

Yet the cycle can be hard to break.

I tried to get it under control.

I started cutting deals with myself, such as, if it’s “real food” then it’s okay to overeat. (Cue jars of almond butter, spinach pizzas, and all-you-can-eat sushi.)

During the week, I trained harder. Ate less. Tracked low and high calories in a spreadsheet. But every starvation attempt was inevitably followed by an even bigger blowout on the weekend.

The cycle continued; my health and fitness goals remained elusive.

How I finally broke the cycle of weekend overeating.

How did I finally break free? Maybe not how you think.

I didn’t use “one weird trick”, or biological manipulation, or reverse psychology.

Strategy #1:
I aimed for “good enough” instead of “perfect”.

So they adhere to strict meal plans (to the last measured teaspoon) Monday to Friday. And, the whole week, they worry incessantly about screwing things up.

By the weekend, though, the willpower gives out. They’re so sick of restrictive eating and can’t wait to eat food they actually enjoy. Bring on the weekend binge!

For most of them, there are only two options: perfect or crap.

So the logic follows:

“It’s Saturday, I’m out to lunch with my family, and I can’t have my perfect pre-portioned kale salad like I usually do, so instead I’ll just overeat a giant bacon cheeseburger and a huge heap of fries.”

If you take “perfect” off the table, things change. You feel empowered because there are now other options. Instead of kale salad vs. five servings of fries, there’s:

“I’m actually in the mood for a salad with my burger because I had fries at that work lunch on Thursday.”

Therefore, my solution: Always aim for “good enough”.

Throughout the work week and the weekend, I started to consider my health and fitness goals, what I was in the mood for, what was available, etc. I came up with a definition of “good enough”, and aimed for that.

Remember: The decent method you follow is better than the “perfect” one you quit.

Strategy #2:
I let go of my food rules.

If perfectionism is the Wicked Witch of overeating, then food rules are the flying monkeys.

Food rules tell you:

what you can and can’t eat,

when you can or can’t eat it,

how you can or can’t eat it, and/or

how much you can or can’t have.

Spreadsheet time!

These rules take up an awful lot of mental real estate. They also set you up for disinhibition… aka “the F*** It Effect”.

What and when you eat is up to you — and your hunger and fullness cues. No matter what day of the week it is.

Strategy #4:
I owned my choices (Really. Owned them.)

Do you ever barter with yourself? Make deals, trades or swaps related to food?

“Okay, self, I’ll turn down dessert today… but I’m gonna collect on the weekend and you better pony up the whole damn pie.”

In this mindset, one “good deed” gives you license to “sin” elsewhere. These trades rarely pay off — they usually just amount to a lot of mental gymnastics that help you avoid making tough decisions and help you justify overeating.

Look, we’re all adults here. Trading off “good” and “bad” is for little kids and convicts. There is no “good” and “bad”. There’s no prison warden holding the keys.

Mind games like this undermine your health goals — and your authority over your decisions.

My solution: I started owning my choices, and letting my adult values and deeper principles guide me when I sat down to eat.

I started making food decisions by acknowledging the outcome I would expect, based on my experience. For example:

“I’m choosing to eat this tub of ice cream on Saturday night. I’ll probably feel nauseated and anxious afterwards. In this instance, I’m fine with it.”

In the end, own your choices: Don’t moralize them. You’re free to eat and drink anything you want. You choose your behavior.

Just remember that different choices produce different outcomes.

It’s your call.

Strategy #5:
I stopped rationalizing.

Weekends present all sorts of comfortable justifications for eating a bunch of non-nutritious foods.

It could be anything:

You were busy. Or maybe you had nothing going on.

You were traveling. Or maybe you were at home.

You had to work. Or you had no work to do.

You had family/social meals. Or maybe you ate alone.

Any excuse will do. Powerless victim of circumstance!

But busyness, boredom, travel, work, or family dinners don’t inherently cause overeating. People eat or drink too much in lots of different situations. Their explanation simply matches whatever happens to be going on at the time.

Rationalizations are a convenient script. They help us make sense of — and perpetuate — our overeating or other unhelpful behaviors.

My solution: I stopped rationalizing and asked myself why I was really overeating.

Sometimes, you’ll want to eat crap. And too much of it. That’s normal.

But instead of falling back on the tired victim-of-circumstance narrative, take the opportunity to ask yourself what’s really going on.

Are you bored? Stressed? Sad? Happy?

Do this over and over and over, and you’ll start to see some patterns. That’s your pot of gold. That’s your opportunity to change overeating behavior — and do something else to address those emotions instead of bingeing.

Ask yourself: How’s that weekend overeating working for you?

But if you’re conflicted, it could be time to investigate further. Ask yourself: What does weekend overeating do for you? What is it a path to? What does it enable you to get or feel? How does it solve a problem or have a purpose for you?

In my case, weekend overeating was self-medication for stress, stimulation and novelty, and a way to connect with other people.

To rearrange your mindset and break the cycle of weekend overeating, try:

aiming for “good enough” instead of “perfect”,

letting go of your food rules,

giving up the Cheat Days,

owning your choices, and/or

quitting the rationalizations.

If you feel urgency or compulsion when you overeat, consider talking to your doctor or a trained professional about binge eating disorder.

Apply the Precision Nutrition “clean slate” method.

Overate Friday night? No problem, wake up Saturday morning and start again. Don’t try to compensate. Just get on with things as normal.

You don’t “pay back” the damage in the gym, nor do you kamikaze your way through a jar of peanut butter. You just pick yourself up, dust yourself off, and go back to doing your best.

Put someone else in control for a while.

Yes, you are the boss of you, and you should own your choices. But changing a deep-seated habit — even one that on the surface may seem silly and harmless, like overeating on the weekend — is challenging. Really challenging.

And just like weight loss, the process of changing your habits will have ups and downs. It helps to team up with someone who will support and encourage you.

Find a friend, a partner, a trainer, or a coach, who will listen to you and keep you accountable. For many clients, relinquishing control is a choice they’re glad to own.

Want help finally getting the healthy, energetic body you’re after?

Often, improving your habits isn’t a straigtforward as you’d like. If you’re looking for guidance, we’ll soon be taking a group of new clients looking for expert support, all as part of our Precision Nutrition Coaching program.

If you’re interested and want to find out more, I’d encourage you to join our presale list.

Being on the presale list gives you two special advantages.

You’ll pay less than everyone else. At Precision Nutrition, we like to reward the most interested and motivated people, because they always make the best clients. Join the presale list and we’ll give you over 45% off the monthly cost of Precision Nutrition Coaching, which is the lowest price we’ve ever offered.

You’re more likely to get a spot. To give clients the personal care and attention they deserve, we only open up the program twice a year. Last time we opened registration, we sold out within minutes. By joining the presale list you’ll get the opportunity to register 24 hours before everyone else, increasing your chances of getting in.

In the end, if you’re ready to start eating, moving, and living better, with help from the world’s premier coaching team, this is your chance.

]]>62851Fitness and health pros: Here’s how to build a track record (and demonstrate your excellence).http://www.precisionnutrition.com/how-to-build-a-track-record
Wed, 16 Nov 2016 04:01:59 +0000http://www.precisionnutrition.com/?p=65935There’s only one foolproof way to convince prospective clients you know what you’re talking about: Provide overwhelming evidence that you’ve helped others — just like them — accomplish the same goals they want to achieve. In today’s article we cover how to do just that: Build a track record and demonstrate excellence. We'll also share one of the tools (ProCoach) that's helped us build our own remarkable track record.

]]>There’s only one foolproof way to convince clients you know what you’re talking about: Provide overwhelming evidence that you’ve helped others — just like them — accomplish the same goals they want to achieve.

In today’s article I cover how to do just that: Build a track record and demonstrate excellence. I’ll also share one of the tools (ProCoach) that’s helped Precision Nutrition build our own remarkable track record.

+++

We’ll soon be opening up our ProCoach™ program to fitness and health professionals around the world.

Tested with more than 70,000 clients, ProCoach makes it easy to deliver world-class, proven nutrition coaching to your own clients. It’ll help you establish a track record, build your brand, and constantly attract new clients…all while working less and getting better results.

To understand ProCoach you first need to understand why it was created, and the key problems it helps health and fitness professionals overcome.

JB shares his early coaching struggles and how PN went from 20 to 45,000 clients with ProCoach.

Want to know exactly how the ProCoach software works? Then check this out.

See how other health and fitness pros are using ProCoach with their clients.

In summary, ProCoach delivers — to your clients, on your behalf — an online, 12-month nutrition coaching program, complete with daily lessons, habits, check-ins, and more. These will help your clients revamp their eating habits and reach their goals.

Plus, as their coach, you’ll be able to support them — by answering questions, offering encouragement, and tracking their progress — through a special coach dashboard.

And, on , we’ll be opening ProCoach to our PN Certification students and graduates around the world.

When you enroll, you’ll be able to use this ground-breaking software and curriculum in your business — with your clients — to deliver world-class results…the kind that build your track record, grow your brand, and create a waiting list to work with you.

You’re an excellent coach? Okay, prove it.

Talk is cheap.

If you’re a top athlete, you don’t tell me you’re good.

You don’t tell me about all the great facilities you’ve trained in, or all the blogs you’ve read about your sport.

You show me you’re good, with your performance.

If you’re a top sprinter, you show me your 100m time.

If you’re a top powerlifter or weightlifter, you show me your best lifts.

(Maybe you’ve even got these on video, so there’s no doubt.)

So, if you had to prove to an employer (or to a colleague) that you’re an excellent coach, how would you do it?

Would you…

mention your degrees and certifications?

talk about which seminars you’ve attended?

list who you’ve mentored or interned with?

share how many years of experience you have?

describe where you’ve worked?

That’s a good start.

An employer might be impressed, just like another athlete might be impressed that you ran on a famous track or trained at a famous strength facility.

But what if you had to prove it to a client?

You know, someone who doesn’t know what those acronyms stand for, who John Berardi is (can you imagine?), and why it’s great to attend the Perform Better summits.

Clients don’t care what you did (or didn’t) study in college. Which seminars you’ve attended. Whom you’ve mentored with. That you can spell “coccyx” or “mitochondria” correctly.

Clients don’t care about all that you’ve learned.

Clients want you to help them.

Clients want to see other clients, just like them.

They want to be able to relate to those clients. Hear their stories. And, as a result, believe that they, too, could make changes in their own lives.

Clients want proof that you can help them make progress.

Because often, when clients start, they don’t believe it. They think progress happens to other people. They’re feeling discouraged, alone, frustrated, lost and/or like the only weirdo that can’t improve.

Getting results is a great start. Of course, it’s the biggest part of your job.

Yet you also have to find ways to:

document that amazing progress;

show those results to others;

present those results to clients in a way that lets them “get it”;

help them really see, feel, believe in the power of your coaching.

How do I begin documenting results?

One of the most common things I hear from professionals is:

“Dr. Berardi: You’ve been doing this for a few decades.

But I’m new. It’ll take forever to build a track record like yours.

I don’t even know where to start.”

Relax. You don’t have to “catch up”.

It’s taken us 10 years to build our current database. We have thousands of success stories, which we’ve built one client at a time. You don’t need that much evidence. Even a handful of case studies will be enough to get started.

Plus, no one knows how to do this at first.

That’s a significant advantage for you. Because today, I’m going to show you exactly how. Follow this advice and you’ll be head and shoulders above your competition.

Step 1:
Start collecting data.

Numbers and photos talk loud. Make data your friend. Right away, start building a regular program of collecting client measurements and other data, and organizing that evidence.

Clients who aren’t “numbers people” may relate better to stories, especially stories about “people like them, just a little better”.

Imagine having this arsenal of data at your fingertips.

Imagine if you could show clients — new and current — about how your program will:

change their bodies in ways that you can see and measure;

improve their mental and emotional health;

boost their confidence and happiness;

make them more informed and knowledgeable about nutrition;

help them be consistent with habits and life-changing behaviors;

help them take pride in personal accomplishment; and

make them feel satisfied with you and your services.

Imagine if you could share stories about how clients can now:

start a family when their poor health initially prevented them from doing so.

take fewer medications, less of those medications… or even get off medications completely.

take control of their lives — to become more resilient, to take productive risks, to try new things and activities, to have cool experiences, to get out of bad situations and try new, more helpful and affirming ones.

improve their relationships with partners, family, friends and colleagues… even find new love as a result of their increased confidence.

Or go on to live more exciting and fulfilling lives full of health, joy and adventure.

But we can show — with our clients’ data and stories — that it’s possible. And eventually, as you collect your own client’ data and stories, you’ll be able to show your clients the same things.

Awesome.

With these data and stories that you collect, you don’t have to brag, “sell yourself”, or “hustle”. In fact, you don’t have to talk much at all.

Your clients’ documented results do the talking for you.

Step 2:
Create a system for reliable data collection.

Of course, you want to make sure that all your data and stories are well-organized and easily accessible.

That means:

Have a trusted system.

Have a long-term commitment to building and maintaining that system.

Just like you tell your clients: There’s no quick-fix. No magic bullet for weight loss. Likewise, there’s no miracle “hack” to build a sizeable track record. There’s only the routine application of basic principles.

Luckily, the concepts are simple. All you have to do is practice them.

Create a schedule for progress tracking.

Some things will happen every day.
(Checking off whether a client did their daily habit.)

Some things happen every week or two.
(Weighing and taking tape measurements, or a weekly analysis of behaviors.)

Some things happen every month or two.
(Taking progress photos, or re-evaluating whether a given program is working.)

Some things happen every few months. (Re-assessing client goals, or looking at how well their skills are developing, or checking their blood work, or testing physical performance.)

Create a system to collect and store data.

You can go old-school, with written forms and questionnaires built into progress-check sessions.

You can do it digitally, with online forms and questionnaires delivered automatically to clients at key intervals.

It doesn’t matter, as long as you have a system you trust.

Use that schedule and system consistently.

Within a year, you’ll end up with plenty of data, including:

before and after photos

body change data

performance data

consistency data

survey data

compelling testimonials and stories

With that arsenal of data, now you’ve got some powerful ammunition — and more importantly, the legitimacy and credibility you deserve.

Step 3:
Tell the story of your results.

You could call it “marketing”. We think of it as telling a good story.

So you’ve done Step 1 — create and maintain a system — and Step 2 — gather the data. Good work. Now, package them up and tell a good story about them.

A quick tip:

Some people will be “numbers people”.
These are your engineers, scientists, accountants, and tech people. They’ll love graphs, or columns of numbers, or percentages. Have those numbers on hand for them. Let them swim in the data.

Most people won’t be “numbers people”.
They’ll be more moved by images and stories. So have some compelling pictures and narratives to share, perhaps even videos.

One of my favorite ways? Photo books.

Using a service like Blurb.com, you can pull together:

client details (first name, age, height, weight);

before and after photos;

body change data (weight, inches, and fat lost or gained);

body change graphs;

consistency data (% nutrition and training adherence);

improvement scores on nutrition information assessments;

powerful quotations from surveys;

collected testimonials; and

a summary of the client’s experience.

Bam.

With online photo book services you can create, organize, and print one-off, super high-quality photo albums based on this information above.

Organize your first book by age, gender, goal, or whatever category you think is important to prospects. Over time, as you collect more data, each category can become a separate book.

Not much of a graphic artist? No problem. Just hire a local designer to help.

You provide all the information and tell them what you’re trying to create. They’ll lay it all out for you (on Blurb or using their own design software) and provide you with a custom book.

Here’s why that’s so cool.

Imagine me walking into your gym or training facility.

It’s my first meeting with you.

I don’t know much about who you are or what to expect. I’m nervous.

Will this work for me?

Will this help me?

Does this coach have experience with people like me?

I meet you. We shake hands. You smile nicely.

I’m slightly reassured. But only slightly.

Then you hand me the photo book.

Wow.

I’m blown away.

I see pictures of people just like me, who got incredible results.

I see numbers and infographics — whoa, look at that weight graph plummeting downward!

I see stories from your clients, who think you’re awesome and rave about how much better their bodies and health and lives are now.

And — let’s be honest — my subconscious critic is also noticing that you took the time and effort to produce high quality materials, which is an indicator of how you treat your business. And me.

I grab a Kleenex. I’m feeling a little choked up. (In a manly way.)

You can help me.

I can feel it. I believe it.

What more needs to be said?

Of course, there are other ways to do this. Instead of printed books you can create digital ones that prospects can flick through on an iPad or mobile phone. Or a website. Or videos.

In the end, it doesn’t matter which format you use.

What matters most:

Collect data constantly and turn it into compelling marketing stories to help sell your services to prospects and clients.

How Precision Nutrition collects data.

Over the last decade we’ve coached and mentored more than 45,000 people in nearly 100 countries through our research programs, professional education courses, and personal coaching groups.

Precision Nutrition was named one of the 10 most innovative companies in fitness by Fast Company magazine.

We’ve built — earned, really — an excellent track record.

Lots of people consider us the world’s leading experts in nutrition coaching.

This includes companies like Nike and Apple as well as professional sports teams like the San Antonio Spurs, Cleveland Browns, and dozens of Olympic athletes and their coaches.

We’ve written for, or been featured in, these leading publications.

And we’ve consulted with these organizations.

Just like we’ve suggested you do, we collect lots of data every few weeks.

For instance, clients can upload their photos into our coaching software.

One of the progress checks that comes every few weeks.

Clients can see those photos within their “Progress” area of our coaching app.

One client’s progress page.

Clients can record their body weight and girths in the same way.

Girth measurements can be recorded here.

Again, clients can see these data in their progress area.

One client’s measurement graph.

We also keep tabs on our clients’ exercise and nutrition behaviors — without having to personally ask them about these every day.

Example habit and workout tracking cards.

They can see how consistent they’re being with particular habits.

One client’s habit and workout tracking page.

When clients start coaching with us, we ask them a host of nutrition knowledge and application questions.

Client intake questionnaire.

We also regularly ask them how they feel about their progress in our 5-minute “How are you doing?” questionnaires.

Example questions from our “How are you doing” surveys.

Not only do some of these questions include rating scales, we also include open-ended questions.

Example open-ended questions from our “How are you doing” surveys.

We regularly ask them how they feel about the job we’re doing in our 5-minute “How are we doing?” questionnaires.

Example questions from our “How are we doing?” surveys.

And, as with our “How are you doing?” questionnaires, we also ask open-ended questions.

Example open-ended questions from our “How are we doing?” surveys.

Is your head spinning with all this data? Good.

Now you can see what it’s like to play in the big leagues.

Maybe you can imagine how amazing this could be for your clients.

But maybe you’re feeling a bit overwhelmed, even anxious.

How could PN coaches possibly gather and track all of this?

Simple really. Our system does the data gathering and tracking for us.

It’s built in, reliably delivered on a known schedule, and 100% automated.

Cool.

How Precision Nutrition shares these data.

Now that we’ve collected all this fantastic information, here’s how we use it.

Client images and testimonials are included on sales pages.

Client quotes and feedback are built into articles and info pages.

We have two big body transformation contests every year and give away over $250,000 in prize money to our best clients.

To get people excited about the contest we announce our male and female finalists each round and let our community vote on who they think should win.

If you’re interested and want to find out more, I’d encourage you to join our presale list. Being on the presale list gives you two special advantages.

You’ll pay less than everyone else. At Precision Nutrition, we like to reward the most interested and motivated professionals, because they always make the best students and clients. Join the presale list and we’ll give you 30% off the monthly cost of Precision Nutrition’s ProCoach.

You’re more likely to get a spot. To launch this in a very controlled way, we’re taking a small group of fitness and health pros for this round. (And we probably won’t open up additional spots till late 2017). Last time we sold out within minutes, but by joining the presale list you’ll get the opportunity to register 24 hours before everyone else, increasing your chances of getting in.

If you’re ready to help more people live their healthiest lives, grow your business, and worry less about time and money… ProCoach is your chance.